Monday, June 27, 2011

Sunday April 30, 2000 was not a good day for the World Discoverer, a cruise ship originally built in Germany, in 1974.At 4pm local time, she hit a coral reef that wasn't in the Solomon Islands charts.

All 99 passengers and crew aboard the US-owned World Discoverer were evacuated amid fears the ship was about to capsize.The passengers were ferried from the World Discoverer to nearby Ngella island and later taken to the main Solomon island of Guadalcanal by charter vessel.

The captain then brought the ship into Roderick Bay after the ship began to list 20 degrees and grounded the ship to avoid sinking.Michael Lomax, president of Society Expeditions, which runs the World Discoverer out of Seattle, said the ship struck an uncharted coral reef in Sandfly Passage, 20 miles north of the Honiara."The captain, Oliver Kruess, thought it was necessary to take the vessel and run it up on to the beach so as to safely evacuate the passengers and the crew members," Mr Lomax said.(see BBCNews 2000)

After underwater surveying of the ship, the World Discoverer was declared a "Constructive Loss".